Russian envoy pleads for ‘common sense’ from Coveney
IRELAND should put its own interests first and not follow the ‘provocative’ and ‘senseless’ actions of some other EU states, the Russian ambassador has said.
Yury Filatov spoke out as Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said he would brief the Cabinet before announcing what ‘appropriate action’ he would take.
Tension between Russia and the West increased yesterday after 16 EU member states, as well as the US, Canada and Ukraine, said they were expelling more than 100 Russian diplomats. Relationships have deteriorated since the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, on March 4. Mr Filatov said the expulsions were ‘really uncalled for, provocative – and basically senseless – actions’, which would not go unanswered.
He asked: ‘Does it bring us any closer to the point of uncovering the truth, what really happened in Salisbury? I don’t think so. We do not know much about the circumstances of the incident. Neither do, I believe, the countries that supported that kind of solidarity action on the part of the EU.’
He added: ‘My job is to be prepared, in any case, but I don’t have any crystal ball, and I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.
‘We’ll wait and see, and I don’t want to talk about hypotheticals. The only thing I know for sure, from the onset of the whole incident on March 4 in Salisbury, is the British government has moved away from dealing with that in a responsible manner.
‘So, they preferred to wage a propaganda campaign – unprecedented, surely.’
He said he wouldn’t be giving advice to the Taoiseach, but added: ‘My only concern is we have to use our common sense.
‘We have to put the interests of our people first. Not someone else’s interests, which I suspect might be the case in this recent European Union action.’
The EU member states have said it was highly likely Russia was responsible for the poisoning and ordered the recall of the bloc’s ambassador to Moscow.